


and the songs shall last long and long

by bam_cassiopeia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ...Technically, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Don’t copy to another site, Epilogue, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, Wildlings - Freeform, in a fuck you kind of way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:40:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bam_cassiopeia/pseuds/bam_cassiopeia
Summary: Jon Snow never sets foot south again, life goes on, and sometimes, different roads lead to the same castle.





	and the songs shall last long and long

(i)

Tyrion tries to be kind, when he tells Jon the Night’s Watch will always be needed, and because Jon doubts they will ever see each other again he is kind in return, and doesn’t say Tyrion had been more honest the last time, when he'd been the only one to tell Jon the truth of what he'd find at the Wall. Or that Daenerys had dreamed of a world in which cripples, bastard, and broken things alike had as much of a place as anyone, and need not run to the edge of the world.

He doesn’t say his punishment isn’t much of one either.

Death would have been fine, but being sent back north to live out the rest of his days with the remnants of the Night’s Watch is far from a horrid fate. Any talk of putting him on the Iron Throne would go nowhere now, and he’d never have to set foot south again -- if Bran had wanted him to suffer he’d have kept Jon there, in King’s Landing or even on Dragonstone, a prisoner with nothing to do but stare at the walls of his cell and ghosts of the past.

On the way north, with two black brothers who refuse to call him anything but Lord Commander as his escort, he wonders if Tyrion truly hasn’t realized what Bran did. Grey Worms’ remaining Unsullied have left Westeros behind already and most of the Dothrakis are set on returning to their plains in Essos, leaving only Dorne and the Iron Islands with a grudge. And Jon, who has siblings on the two thrones of Westeros, has just been handed an independant, currently purposeless organization with castles to rebuild and lands to settle. It would be lonely, with so many brothers lost to the wars and Sam, the last of his old friends, remaining south, and Davos with him, but Jon would also have reasons to remain in contact with both Winterfell and the Free Folk.

Even _Jon_ can see it. His punishment is a sleight of hand, an illusion, and once he’d have hated that, thought it a mockery of justice. Now he’s just thankful for the opportunity to do a measure of good. Something that wasn't death. He'd break no wheels, but he could do that.

She’d be disappointed, he thinks. _The world needs trees more than it needs dragons_ , he tells her shade in a dream, but in the morning he doesn’t remember what he meant by it.

 

***

 

In White Harbor, where his escort and him finally leave the sea behind, is he welcomed and feasted as though he’s still a king. Better than when he was a king, in truth. Lord Manderly doesn’t quite say why -- it makes for an awkward speech on his part, but Jon only feels relieved that what everyone knows isn’t voiced, that it’s his murder of Dany they’re celebrating. _That, and peace, and freedom_ , he tells himself. _You’re just an occasion_. It doesn’t make the happy crowd easier to bear, and he leaves the revelry as soon as he can to steal to the Wolf’s Den dark, overgrown godswood and its heart tree.

The Old Gods are silent, but he can feel them as he couldn’t in the South, listening hidden in the carved heart tree, in the darkest shadows of the ancient wood, in the heavy silence smothering sounds of rage and screams of anguish alike.

 

***

 

From White Harbor to the Wall the trip is long, but Lord Manderly gave them good horses. Soon the salty smell of the sea disappears, and every breath starts tasting more and more like _home_. They make good time for men in no real hurry, and the few other keeps they do stop at on the way are just as welcoming as White Harbour, though thankfully there are no more feasts and no one at all says Daenerys’ name. Out of pity or respect, Jon doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

Castle Black is a welcome sight, despite the wave of bitter nostalgia it brings. It’s not Winterfell, where he’s seen no point to stop despite the black brothers offering, since it would be empty of family, and it’s not the wilds of the True North, where a man can be a ghost, but still it feels like home. The boy in him was killed here, in more ways than one, and the Wall -- the Wall is his like nothing else ever was. _It will be enough_.

But then, he knows nothing. For behind the gates, Castle Black is both everything he’s expected and anything but. The husk of itself is familiar enough, and the ragtag black brothers that kept to their post during the longest of nights. The way they look at him he hadn’t expected, nor Tormund and the Free Folk.

 _They waited for me_.

And Ghost. Ghost who is half of him, and licks his palm as though Jon didn’t abandon him. Not that he regrets it; he’d wanted Ghost to go free, where he belonged, far from human wars. It still feels like the right decision, all the more so now that Ghost’s nipping at his fingers. The maimed ear hurts to look at, though it makes a strange sort of sense. Jon’s lost part of himself too, although his new scars are inside, invisible.

“We still match, boy,” he whispers in Ghost’s fur, letting the feeling of home wash over him.

 

***

 

His old solar bears no trace of Edd’s time, only a thick layer of dust proving that Jon left at all. There’s an inventory of the cellars' content on his desk he never saw finished. It’s probably outdated. He’ll have to do something about that, and quickly.

“I thought you would have left already,” he tells Tormund, who’s barely left his side since he arrived, and is now busying himself serving mead into mismatched cups.

“Almost,” Tormund says. “I’ve sent scouts. They’ll be waiting at Whitetree.”

“They must be growing impatient.” It seems so long ago that they parted. Jon doesn’t even know how long, because he’d lost count of the days in his improvised cell in King’s Landing, and hasn’t thought of asking anyone. “I think I’m Lord Commander again,” he adds, because really there’s only one reason the Free Folk would have waited for him, and by the gods, he _wants_ to leave with them.

“Some say you always were,” Tormund grunts. “A man can be two things. King Crow.”

 _That’s not me_ , he wants to say, _it never was_ , but it feels like more than half a lie. “I’ve broken enough of my oaths already.” That much is true at least.

Tormund rolls his eyes. “No crown, no land, no wife, is that it? You’ll have none of those. Though we could have found you a crown. Hah! Bet all those Southron pricks would love that."

Jon can only grimace at the thought. “For this night, and all the nights to come,” he quotes.

Tormund opens his mouth, closes it, and gives Jon a look that’s almost pensive. “There’s no Others left to guard the realms against,” he finally says. “Nothing to watch for but our people, and we’ll be licking our wounds for years and years. You're coming with us, boy.” His tone brooks no argument, but Jon still tries.

“The Long Night is over."

"And it's you that took us through it," Tormund says, and points an accusing finger towards Jon. “ _You_ know the south. Might be we’ll have to trade -- Walkers didn’t just kill people, and we need meat to live. Even the Thenn say they can’t know when their next harvest will be. And there’s them folks already thinking of rebuilding Hardhome with _stone_ too, Dim Dalba’ll talk your ear off ‘bout that and _winter towns._ ” There’s scorn in Tormund’s voice, and bitterness. “Too many of us are too old or too young or too broken to go back to life as it was, he’s not wrong about that. Your sister’s a fine lady, and some of those southrons aren’t half-bad, but it’s _you_ we trust to help with those things.”

“I can do that here.” He could; it’s not far from what he’d thought he would be doing. Until the gates of Castle Black opened. “You don’t need me.”

“What’s need got to do with anything? The Watch don’t need you neither.”

“It’s my sentence,” Jon objects, and breaks. “I killed her,” he says, sobbing like a child. He _feels_ like a child, discovering the world’s cruelty for the first time, and he feels old, older than a man his years ought to, and so, so tired.

“You shoulda stolen her away,” Tormund says, nodding wisely, and he makes it sound like such a reasonable idea Jon can’t help but laugh.

“Aye, I should have,” he manages, wiping wetness from his eyes. Tormund shoves a cup of mead in his hands, and fills it again once Jon’s done gulping it down. He drinks that cup too.

“Tell me the tale,” Tormund asks, and so he does. He’s more than half drunk from the mead Tormund keeps pressing in his hands by the end of it, words slurring, tears flowing freely. He’d be ashamed of the display, but he’s too tired to care, and he doubts Tormund will think any less of him for _that_ anyway. Most Free Folk cry as easily as they laugh.

At some point Tormund puts him to bed, tucking him under furs as though Jon is still a child. He looks sad, Jon thinks, and wonders why. He falls asleep before figuring it out.

 

***

 

He spends the next day going over depleted cellars, the near-empty armoury, the ravenless ravenry, the buildings in need of repairs. Satin, one of the surviving stewards, slowly takes wobbly notes of curt orders. Jon isn't sure any of the other black brothers can read or write. Most of the day’s work comes down to sending black brothers begging to Winterfell for help -- food and blankets, ravens and ink, men and saws and stone, the list of things they need seems unending. Satin looks surprised but only nods when Jon tells him to inflate the demands for food to take the Free Folk into account, making another note.

“Will they be staying then?”

“No,” Jon replies. And because he might as well take the surprise out of it: “Neither will I. I’m going with them.”

That doesn’t seem to surprise the steward. “There’s a betting pool,” he tells Jon. “Half the men thought you wouldn’t even stay one night.”

“I see," Jon says. He shouldn't be surprised; it's men of the Watch who called him half a wildling first after all. "What did you bet?"

"I didn't," Satin says. "I've nothing I'd want to bet.” He looks down to his notes and smiles, a small, shy thing. “But I did think you’d stay long enough to make sure we weren’t going to starve, at least.”

Jon smiles back. “Too bad you couldn’t bet. As to starving -- we’ll try to avoid that.” Winterfell, _Sansa,_ would do what she could, but she had her own people to think of first. “Starting tomorrow I want any able brother who’s not held up by something vital hunting. South of the Wall only.”

 

***

 

That first evening after leaving Castle Black, he sits beside a roaring fire with spicy rabbit stew, Ghost at his feet and Tormund at his side, surrounded by people that are _his_ despite everything. The air is clean, and the night smells of pines and snow and wood smoke.

It’s when Tormund starts telling a long, nonsensical joke about a giant, a warg and a hedgehog Jon’s already heard half a dozen times that he realizes for the first time since King’s Landing, smoke doesn’t feel like the end of the world.

The _world_ doesn’t feel over at all, and Jon… Jon feels _fine_. Not happy, not quite content, but close enough.

It’s a strangely painful thought, that life goes on, that already it tastes like more than ashes. It’s not the first time he feels it, grief settling into something less raw, something almost companionable, but it’s always unexpected, and it’s never painless.

Laughter brings him back; Tormund’s finished telling his joke, and on the other side of the fire a Hornfoot man starts singing in the Old Tongue, a mournful tune taken up by half a dozen more fierce voices.

Jon only understands half of it, but enough to know it’s their dead the Free Folk are singing. The next songs are happier ones, songs of home and life and victory against all odds, and soon there’s dancing, no steps to discern and people colliding and laughing and crying and howling. He’s pulled to his feet by a smiling woman whose name he doesn’t know yet, her left cheek bisected by a thick scar. His footing is awkward and his eyes wet, but still he lets himself follow and the crowd swallows him.

Dany would have loved this, he thinks; he wishes she’d seen it, this frenzied dance, a collective scream of grief and defiance and joy, everything she’d helped save, worth so much more than any throne.

But she never will, and it’s him that did it and him that feels so very alive, so when Sigorn of Thenn hands him a wineskin he drinks deep, and then it’s Tormund with bitter ale, and before long he’s throwing his head back and howling along with his people.

 

***

 

He dreams of it. Ashes falling like snow, ashes everywhere, covering the world in thin layers, finding its way in the water and the food, and the stench of smoke and blood and burned flesh. The ruined Red Keep, and the ugly throne of swords, and Daenerys, beautiful and triumphant, too quick to forgive him, too trustful. How easy it had been, one quick thrust and that bloody kiss, the taste of her death. The shock in her eyes. How quickly death had taken her, too fast for last words.

In the dream, it’s slower. She fades in his arms, and he tells her he’s sorry, that he loves her, that he misses her. _Not enough_ , her shade replies. Her eyes are sad, her mouth angry and red. _Not enough_.

He hates that this is how he remembers her best, dying, betrayed, but then, there are worst memories. There’s her hopeful smile and the sound of her laughter and her hand in his and the silky feel of her hair and the way she tasted, and a time when they’d dared to dream even as they were heading into darkness, a time when it felt like people were coming together rather than breaking apart.

 

***

 

On the second day, Ghost spots a fox, and on the third a boy named Tyg sees two rabbits. It’s something, but it’s not enough, so for a few days they hunker down in the ruins of Whitetree while search parties look for life and Tormund and Jon start going over what the Free Folk have to trade.

Near a hundred different clans, kin groups and tribes had once shared the True North; settled people and nomads and cave people, Hornfoot in the mountains, hill clans and mountains clans and river tribes, people of the walruses and people of the mammoths and the Thenn in their valley, and so many others.

Most of them are gone. Full clans now extinct, reduced to a handful of children and elders, a few tired warriors and spearwives, and not always that much. Many of the youngest children were born during the long march south and never saw the lands their parents hail from. Some of the orphans don’t even know which clans they were born into and most likely never will.

Few of their leaders survived; Tormund of course, and Dim Dalba, although the Battle of the Bastards cost him an arm. There’s Val of Whitetree, who leads none but is said to have been touched by the Old Gods, and Soren Shieldbreaker whose people are all dead but who still commands respect, and Morna White Mask the warrior witch, and Sigorn of Thenn, Magnar of some two handful of people far from their land, who somehow makes himself near-indispensable. It's him that starts teaching Jon the Old Tongue and its dialects. He laughs whenever Jon trips on unfamiliar words, but is patient enough.

Old enmities are buried in favour of working together for survival, but the ancient divisions don’t quite disappear; clans reform, new ones emerge, and Jon has no doubts they will scatter again as soon as they know the land can support them. And yet, somewhere along the way, the Free Folk have become one people. He sees it in the smiles given to children playing, mixing half a dozen dialects together, and in the implacably equalitarian sharing of food, he hears it when Sigorn and Dim Dalba, of all people, egg each other on with grand rebuilding plans, and whenever people talk of pooling knowledge and resources together for things that go beyond survival.

It’s a good thing, Jon tells himself. Sometimes he can’t help but think of Ygritte, crying as she sang of the last of the giants, but he’s long known saving the Free Folk meant destroying them in some fashion. At least this coming together to salvage and rebuild feels like a kinder option.

 

***

 

The first year is hard. They grow lean, and Jon learns hunger, the kind that cramps bellies and keeps children and adults up at night.

Meat is scarce, and if search parties venturing further and further bring back news of elks and deers and rams and even mammoths, they always report numbers smaller than they should. Elders and hunters shake their heads, cursing the undead, and insist on keeping hunting to a minimum. Sigorn talks of food caches dug deep in his people’s valley, of grain that could be growing wild, but it’s a long way, and for all they know the caches were destroyed along with the rest, and nothing grows in Thenn lands.

Still, there are roots and tubers in the ground, soft bark to boil -- the land only looks empty, and there is more to forage than Jon would have believed. Castle Black’s stores help too, and Winterfell. The Free Folk like it little, but pride fills no belly and they take what is given.

Once they’d have gone raiding south, but few consider it seriously. _Most don’t want to raid people they fought beside_ , Tormund says. _They send food_ , Soren Shieldbreaker grimaces. Morna White Mask spits and nods her assent, grumbling something about honor.

Sigorn points out they don’t have the numbers anyway, nor can they afford retaliation from the North. _Or Snow_ , he grins. _You take raiders head_.

Trade chafes less on Free Folk pride than help from south of the Wall, but they have few riches, and fewer on hand. They have trees, and there are deposits of copper and tin, and the tusks of walruses, and mammoth ivory, and salt in the Frostfangs; Jon lists these things, writing in the smallest hand he can. Sigorn offers the copper of his people, Morna White Mask talks of gems far to the north, dozens come to tell him of their skill at carving or the quality of their furs or the taste of their mead.

Little of it is of immediate use, but it lets all of them glimpse a future without the hunger that dogs their steps now. Something to look forward to as they endure, dreaming of spring.

 

***

 

It takes only a little more than a year for Jon to see Winterfell and Sansa again, although they’ve been in contact much longer through ravens and messengers. He half regrets not having been present at her coronation, to be at her side the way she’d been at his, but he thinks it’s just as well too. His presence would have been awkward for her lords, who’d once chosen him over her, and his relationship with Sansa could do without reminders of that.

And there’s the South to think of. Jon’s punishment might not be much of one, but there’s no reason to make that more obvious than it already is. Which is also why, if anyone asks, his visit to Winterfell is an official meeting between the Queen in the North and the Free Folk, with the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch mediating.

It’s true enough; Tormund comes to Winterfell along with Jon, and the three of them talk of trade agreements and fishing territories, among other matters. And if the visit stretches to longer than strictly necessary, well, who’d be surprised?

And so he lingers in Winterfell, reacquainting himself once again with the ancient, patched-up buildings, the training yard and the godswood, the heated walls and the people, those he remembers and those he doesn’t. Sansa’s new castellan is a Snow, but it’s the Master at Arms, a grizzled man from Bear Island, that Jon likes spending time with the most. And to his surprise, almost unrecognizable, there’s Jeyne Poole, who found his sister in the ruins of King’s Landing. She holds herself in the way broken people do once they start rebuilding themselves, when every smile is a victory, and if they were never close, she was Sansa’s best friend in the golden days of summer, and Jon is glad that she lived against all odds.

If anything, Sansa deserves a friend by her side; she is well-loved, the Queen in North, and she loves her people, but without family, and so many people long dead, Winterfell must feel lonely to her. Not that she would show it -- his sister is ever gracious, smiling and courteous, a lady to the bone. Ruling suits her, Jon thinks, watching her talk of rebuilding or her plans for what she already calls West Harbour, eyes shining and happy. He doesn’t weigh in unless she asks, and she does the same in return when he talks of the Free Folk. They are both careful, anything but eager to reopen still-healing scars, and all-too-aware that they belong to different people now, even if they will never not be family.

But mostly, they are just Sansa and Jon, riding out as they never did as children, sneaking in the kitchens to steal lemoncakes for the joy of it. They laugh as Jeyne recounts castle gossip with shy smiles and read to each other until late in the night, and it makes everything else easier.

 

***

 

“Tyrion sent me a letter, you know,” Sansa informs him one evening late into his stay, after a meal spent over news of the Six Kingdoms. ‘He wanted to know what in the Seven Hells I was doing -- I think what he said was, letting the new Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch fuck off with wildlings after having spent all of two minutes at the Wall.”

“I stayed two days,” Jon says, and Sansa sends him the look that says she’s not impressed with him in the least. “Still, I’m sorry you had to deal with that. What did he want you to do anyway?”

“Nothing. He’s just as aware as I am I have no authority over the Watch, no more than anyone else; that was half the point of sending you there in the first place. I think he’s just frustrated because he didn’t see it coming, and really he _should_ have. Well, maybe not the Free Folk poaching you exactly, but… he probably imagined you’d be gracious enough to just stay on the Wall and be really sad forever so the Six Kingdoms could conveniently forget about you.” She snorts, unladylike and amused. “Or maybe that you’d spend the rest of your life guarding the realms against grumpkins and snarks. As if I’d have _let_ you. You know I’d never, Jon,” she says, so fierce he can’t not smile. “We’re _Starks_. I’d have found a way to bring you home.”

“I know,” he tells her, and clears his throat, willing the sudden tightness away. “So what did you tell Tyrion?”

“Oh,” she says, smiling smugly, “only that he already knew I wasn’t about to break a covenant of thousands of years by intervening in the Night’s Watch affairs, and that if the Lord Commander wanted to make it the Watch’s new purpose to resettle the Free Folk there wasn’t much I could do about it.”

It’s a very reasonable answer. “Bet he loved that,” Jon laughs.

“I’ll give you his reply to read,” Sansa offers, still smiling. “He had some choice names for you. You might even deserve some of them.”

 

***

 

Sometimes it’s Ygritte in his dreams, all fiery hair and furs and blood, shaking her head at him. _You shouldn’t love women, Jon Snow,_ she says. _It kills them_. She smiles, so very young, forever young. He’s definitely older than her now. She will never be old. _You should try goats_ , she tells him, and in the dream he laughs so hard he cries.

 _I liked it better when you told me I know nothing_ , he says.

 _But you know things now_ , she sighs, and her voice is sadder than it ever was in life.

 

***

 

Arya is three years gone, and then she returns as summer begins. Jon’s in Hardhome, where rebuilding started in earnest with spring, when two black brothers find him with the news. Three hours later, he's riding south with Ghost, leaving even Tormund behind in his haste.

It’s no short trip to Winterfell, but it feels like no time at all before he’s in the courtyard of his childhood home, his not so little sister staring at him like he’s a ghost when really, it should be him giving her this look. There’s Needle at her waist, and her hair are cut short.

“This can’t be my sister,” he says, throat tight and heart hammering. “My sister left to seek what’s west of Westeros, never to come back. This must be a ghost.”

“Stop being _stupid_ ,” Arya huffs. “Aren’t you glad?”

“Very much so,” Jon says, and there’s a long, clingy hug. Arya’s hair smell faintly of salt, and she’s a bit thinner than he remembers, and he doesn’t want to let her go, ever.

She brings back no tales of new lands, but maritime maps and charts aplenty that she shows off with great enthusiasm in Sansa’s solar, tracing her travels, the one she’s returning from and the ones she wants to make. Jon doesn’t quite share her love of sailing, but when she talks of the shifting colours of the sea he knows exactly what she means.

“You should come to see Hardhome someday,” he offers. “Sometimes there are blocks of ice in the sea, and if the light is right you could think they’re stars fallen from the sky.”

“I’d like to see that,” Arya says, grinning as she rolls up her maps. “When can we go?”

“When do you want to go?”

 

***

 

He’s been in Winterfell barely a sennight when Arya, with the air of someone about to impart a great secret, informs him Sansa is in love.

“Really?” he asks, not because he doesn’t believe her, but because he’s not noticed any change in Sansa’s behaviour.

Arya punches his shoulder, hard. “Yes, really, and it’s not _new_.”

Try as he might, Jon can’t think of a candidate. Sansa’s lords are either too old or too young, and for all that she has many correspondents in the Six Kingdoms, he doesn’t think any of them are prospective suitors. “Who?”

Arya gives him the look she reserves for people being painfully stupid, rolling her eyes. “Her castellan.”

Jon grimaces. “That’s sad.”

“Why?”

“He’s a Snow,” Jon reminds her. The bastard of a dead Mormont cousin, or maybe a Glover, he’s not quite sure. “Her lords won’t approve.”

“Fuck the lords,” Arya shrugs. “He’s nice. _I_ like him.”

“So do I,” Jon agrees. Torrhen always has snacks for Ghost when Jon’s in Winterfell, and he’s kind with Jeyne. It’s surprisingly easy to imagine him as Sansa’s husband, but bastards don’t marry queens, so it’s doubtful anything will come of it.

Jon’s proven wrong one moon’s turn later, and Arya watches on smugly as he walks Sansa, radiant in pale Stark grey, to Winterfell’s heart tree, where Torrhen Snow waits for her. The groom looks more nervous than the bride does, but that’s understandable; in the morning Jon’s reminded him what happened to the last husband who mistreated his sister, and only the gods know what _Arya_ told him.

“I bring myself,” Sansa declares when asked. There is no bedding ceremony.

 

***

 

“Arya’s been badgering me for a fleet,” Sansa tells him after an afternoon of negotiation that saw Jon ceding the New Gift against a formal oath to help the Watch rebuild its castles. They’re both in high spirits, celebrating the agreement over honey and cheese and summer wine. “She heard about the Ironborn mounting their own expedition,” Sansa adds, “and _apparently_ it’s unfair that they have a whole fleet when she only has one ship, and I _must_ do something unless I want them to win the race.”

It’s not a very good imitation of Arya, but Jon laughs all the same. “It’s a race now?”

“No,” Sansa says, but she sounds far from convinced. “But I’ll admit I do like the idea of the North finding whatever lies west first.” Her eyes are hard. His sister had forgiven Theon but his House was another matter, and Yara had ensured there would be no reconciliation between their families when she’d pushed to punish Jon. She’d been right to, but that was not something Sansa would ever accept. Or Arya.

“You do have the ships,” he offers. Finding the West would bring trade as well as glory, and if Jon doesn’t think it prudent to antagonize the Iron Islands further, it seems even less prudent to let them rise to strength again.

“I think -- I was thinking it would give me a pretext to invite Davos here.”

That takes Jon by surprise. “Davos?” he asks. Maybe he’s misheard.

Sansa shrugs, not quite looking at him. ”I don’t have anything like a Master of Ships yet, and with Arya’s plans… her plans for the West, and my plans for West Harbour? I _need_ a Master of Ships. I can’t give the post to Lord Manderly -- he has enough influence as it is. But I can’t give it to another northern lord without insulting him either. Davos has the experience, he’s well respected, and from what I remember he liked the North well enough”. Her eyes turn soft. “And he’s your friend. I can offer him as much as the South and more.” She sighs, shoulders sagging slightly. “Bran kept _everyone_ after the war.” It’s only because Jon knows her so well he can hear the bitterness in Sansa’s voice. She doesn’t need to say Brienne’s name; the knight had been her sworn sword, someone she could trust absolutely -- until she’d left.

He understands; as selfish as it is, Jon still hopes Sam will find his way back to the Wall someday, enough to pepper his letters to him with hints of stories and knowledge never put on parchment, and the occasional update on the rebuilding of Castle Black’s library. Sam hasn’t bitten yet, but he’s sent books for the library, and detailed explanations of the way they were to be stocked.

 

***

 

Arya leaves Winterfell with Jon. He shows her Castle Black, which looks less and less like a purely northern place every year. Half the black brothers are Free Folk these days, but most residents are temporary, and the way beyond the Wall is always open. The castle is still the Watch’s headquarters, but it’s also a trading post and a meeting place and a growing repository of knowledge, put down on parchment by maesters Sam sent.

His sister loves it, and watching it through her eyes is a delight. Jon sees hard work and what remains to do, but Arya sees what they’ve accomplished already, and the beauty of it. It’s the same in Whitetree, where Val feasts them in grand fashion. Singers recount Arya's heroics, but it’s the half-dug buildings and the communal Hall and the Carving House where bones and ivory and wood and stone are turned into both tools and art she enjoys most of all, to everyone’s delight.

In Hardhome, where Val accompanies them, they explore the cliff’s caves and meet the docked Ibbenese whalers’ crews. Arya exchange news with the few Braavosi traders and goes fishing with Dim Dalba’s people, and when the light is just right, the both of them watch stars fallen on the sea, shining bright like so many suns.

And then Arya leaves with Val, back to Whitetree, to Castle Black, to Winterfell, and further.

This time, she promises to return.

 

***

 

Sometimes, rarely, it’s yet someone else in his dreams, a woman he’s never known with a crown of wilting blue roses in her hair. _I’m not sorry_ , she says, dark eyes defiant, and: _I loved you the most_. Lyanna Stark calls him her boy and kisses his brow tenderly. She looks like him, and Arya, and too young to be his mother. Too young to be anyone’s mother.

 _You were such a sweet babe_ , she croons.

 _I killed you too_ , he tells her.

 

***

 

Four years and a half after Arya promised to come back, and it’s only happenstance that Jon’s in Castle Black when a raven arrives from Storm’s End with the news that her ships are on their way to White Harbour. Her second expedition was as unsuccessful as the first, the message says, and she will be wintering at home.

But autumn is stretching its fingers across the land and Jon’s duty-bound to look to winter, so instead of riding south to Winterfell to wait for his sister, he rides north to the Fist with Satin and a handful of black brothers to meet with clan leaders and elders.

His sister’s a Stark. She’ll understand.

When he makes it to Winterfell, near four moon’s turns later, Arya is unexpectedly, undeniably pregnant. It doesn’t stop her from jumping in his arms. He doesn’t hug her back immediately, because all he can think of is the raven was from _Storm’s End_ , and Gendry’s _married_ , to a Dayne or an Yronwood, and half a continent away isn't _that_ far --

He shakes the thought away. He's Jon, not Brandon Stark, and he knows Arya does as Arya does.

Gods, he hopes they didn't marry. That _would_ start a war.

“What,” he asks, poking at her belly.

She swats his hand away with a grunt. “Don’t you start. Sansa’s enough as it is.”

There’s something hard in her face, and a hint of pleading in her eyes, and he doesn’t push. “I was only going to say you shouldn’t let Sansa feed you too many lemoncakes,” he tells her in his most solemn voice.

“Gods,” Arya says, tearing up. “You’re so fucking stupid. I love you.”

 

***

 

Sansa gave her two boys family names -- Robb Stark and Eddard Stark, and Arya does the some for Jon’s first niece.

Little Lyanna Snow is born as autumn draws to its end. Her eyes are bright blue, her few wispy hairs dark as midnight, but other than that she looks exactly like Arya did as a baby, and Jon falls in love with her the instant they meet.

 

 

 

 

(ii)

For the tenth anniversary of Bran’s coronation, Jon has a raven sent to Tyrion. It’s a short message, and the first personal exchange between the both of them since King’s Landing. He doesn’t dwell on it; the south is far, Jon’s not always easy to find, roaming as the Free Folk do, and it could be a few moon’s turns before the answer reaches him.

He has more immediate concerns, like appeasing the Skagosi envoy’s worries about fishing territories and the Braavosi traders passing through his people’s waters on the way to Hardhome. Or the old conflict between ice-river clans and just about everyone else in the Frostfangs rearing its head back, which Jon fears will end badly. And then there’s Morna White Mask’s proposal of defensive structures for Hardhome, and Sigorn and Dim Dalba who keep pushing their grand plan of restoring First Men forts to serve as waystations and granaries.

All that pales before the nightmare that’s the North’s and the Free Folk’s own shared celebration of the end of the war, set to take place in Castle Black. Jon shares that burden, which mostly means Satin and him being stuck between Tormund and Sansa, who have wildly conflicting visions of what a celebration should even be. Arya doesn't help; she and Davos are in West Harbour, busy with their own preparations of a third expedition in search of the West. One she won’t be joining, to Jon and Sansa’s relief, although Arya insists Lyanna will be grown enough to take along on a fourth expedition.

Jon is glad she’s not in Winterfell, because the preparations are exhausting, and he’s snappish with everyone. Tormund laughs when Sansa asks whether Free Folk banners should be grouped together or thrown in with northern ones, and it’s Jon who has to explain to his sister that more than half the clans have neither banner nor sigil, and to his second the symbolism behind banner placement.

Much worse are the negotiations for the sacrifice the Free Folk intend to make to the Old Gods; Sansa hates the thought and expects Jon to forbid it, when really he doesn’t have that power, and no one would take him seriously if he tried anyway. But Sansa wants to know why, and that means revealing to her he’s more than tolerated the practice, which she doesn’t take well, at all.

He doesn’t know how to explain how that first year beyond the Wall was even with Winterfell’s aid, how they’d been so hungry, all of them, and without mercy for anyone caught stealing food. He doesn’t _want_ to tell her about the ice-river men, and the little boy, what was left of him, and the nauseating smell of King’s Landing -- Jon couldn’t have stopped the crowd when the culprits were dragged to a weirwood, even if he’d wanted to.

No, he doesn’t want to talk about that with Sansa.

In the end, he doesn’t have to, because it’s Tormund who somehow convinces his sister, and when the day comes, in the weirwood grove north of Castle Black, two child-snatchers are offered to the gods. There’s less of those than there used to be, but few things are most precious than children to the Free Folk, and sometimes a clan has a gaggle of them and their neighbours none.

Most thievery the Free Folk forgive. Food and children, they don’t.

 

***

 

“Daenerys would have loved this,” he tells Tormund much later the same day, and he can smile at the thought. “People coming together, celebrating their freedom. Look at this,” he says, waving at the recently widowed Alys Karstark dancing with the Magnar of Thenn in what once was Castle Black's training yard, crowded with northerners and Free Folk and the odd merchant. “This -- this is what we fought for. What _she_ fought for.”

Tormund, who probably drank two or three ales for each of the four Jon has had, gives him a drunken leer. “Enjoy it then, you sad crow,” he bellows, clasping Jon’s shoulder briefly before pushing him towards the dancers. It’s Val of Whitetree who catches him, laughing as she stops him from tumbling to the ground before dragging him into the crowd for a dance, and then it’s Alys Karstark, though Sigorn seems loathe to let her go.

He dances with his sisters as well -- _you remember the steps_ , a delighted Sansa exclaims, laughing like they are children again, dancing in Winterfell’s godswood and he didn’t step on her feet once. Arya cackles when he tells her she is too good a dancer for him and repeatedly tries to twirl him, arguing the best dancer should lead, _don’t you agree Jon?_   He tells her she’s too short, and she stomps on his foot in indignation.

 

***

 

When it reaches him, more than two moons’ turns after the celebrations, Tyrion’s answer is barely longer than Jon’s message was.

 _Ask me again in ten years_.

Ten years later, and once again, Tyrion’s answer remains the same. He's not Hand anymore by then, replaced by a Velaryon Jon's never met. He's Lord Lannister instead, growing old in Casterly Rock with a legitimized bastard as his heir. They still do not exchange personal letters other than their short missives, but Sansa does, and Jon knows Tyrion intends to die in his House seat.

His old friend will never take the black as he once japed he might, which is just as well. Jon doesn’t think they could stand being near each other, even now. _He wants to see you_ , Sansa tells him. _He wants to be forgiven, I think_. But Jon will never set foot South again, and Tyrion cannot make the trip North, and so Jon compromises and sends Tyrion a long letter.

He talks about the way Whitetree’s roofs shine in the sun, about ancient ruins under the snow and spring celebrations at a Castle Black Tyrion wouldn’t recognize and the time Arya decided to train a shadowcat and how it’s Lyanna the beast attached itself to instead, about legends no one south of the Wall would have ever heard and the Ibbenese whalers docked at Hardhome and Davos’ brood of grandchildren, about the stillness of the Haunted Forest and the mammoth herds near the old Valley of the Thenn and the slitted eye-masks his people wear in the Frozen Shores where the ice shines so bright it can blind a man, about Sansa’s efforts to expand Winterfell’s Wintertown and the shaggy unicorns ridden by Skagosi and seas of fog in the Frostfangs, about weirwood groves being grown and the wild boys Sansa and Torrhen have graced the world with and the books Sam has been writing with Gilly, compendiums of Free Folk legends and stories, about how one of Tormund’s daughters had a son from a Mormont boy and her father declared her Wife to Bears with tears of mirth in his eyes, and how Ghost found himself a lady direwolf nearly as silent as him to bear pups.

He writes until his wrist aches, the small stories and tidbits that make up his life, surprising himself with how much he has to share, even as he avoids any talk of the past or of forgiveness that’s not his to give.

Tyrion’s reply is longer than even Jon’s initial letter. Jon’s favourite parts are a colorful retelling of how Tyrion’s friend Bronn lost Highgarden and with it the Reach to a bet with a Hightower, and long descriptions of the Rock and Lannisport, but even now talk of the South brings back memories and thoughts heavy as lead. He can’t read of the rebuilt King’s Landing without remembering how it was destroyed, or see Bran’s name and not feel the weight of years spent without seeing his brother once, and a throwaway mention to a Lord of Dragonstone winning a tourney leaves him reeling, like he’s been punched by a giant.

He doesn’t tell Tyrion that in his own follow-up letter, but he includes a copy of a Free Folk song about stealing the wolf-crow heir of the South’s Iron Chair for their own. It's more than a bit petty, but it feels good too, like stretching an old scar, and he laughs thinking of the face Tyrion will make.

 

***

 

Jon doesn’t talk about the stories of Essos brought by Braavosi traders until the fifth letter; they are stories of Daenerys’ legacy, and for all that Tyrion is like to know them already, the legends of the Breaker of Chains, part of Jon is loathe to share them with him. Tyrion replies with his own stories, and rumours of dragons sighted in Essos, and it is the closest they ever get to talking about Daenerys, though her phantom lives between the lines of their letters.

It's in the description of fat, happy children and of views she'd have loved to see, in the stories of the fallen slaver cities and the Bay of Dragons where all men are free, in the things they don’t say of their efforts to make the world a little better, a little more like the one she dreamed of.

Tyrion’s letter also offers a royal pardon. There’d been others before, official messages sent to Castle Black by raven and signed by Bran the Broken, First of His Name, the Three Eyed Raven. Jon’s sent all of them back to King’s Landing. What would a pardon mean? His sentence was a lie, and Jon doesn’t particularly care to help Bran making it look otherwise.

To Tyrion he only writes he is satisfied with things as they are, and in no need of a pardon that would mean nothing to him. His old friend can read between the lines.

 

***

 

In his ninth letter, Jon tells Tyrion about Val of Whitetree, who buried two men already and kissed him last solstice. _She told me to steal her before she grows too old to give a good fight_ , he writes, _and that no man should mourn forever. I think she might be right_. He doesn’t write that he feels like he’s betraying Daenerys’ memory, or that he doesn’t love Val the way he loved her, or that he is sorry. He does write that Val’s daughter from her second man loves the stories of the Dragon Queen more than any other, and that as luck would have it, Val tells them better than anyone; that, more than any description of Val’s bravery, of her wildness and wisdom, will make Tyrion understand, he thinks.

Tyrion replies that this Val sounds all too generous, and that if Jon doesn’t hurry up he’ll be the one that’s too old to give a good fight.

Still, Jon doesn’t try to steal Val until after the second time she corners him. _I’ll make room for your ghosts_ , she says, _but I’m done waiting_ , and this time it’s him who kisses her. That’s when he steals her, although really it’s more of a mutual thing, the two of them sneaking away from camp as silently as they can to find themselves a secluded clearing.

 _I hope you don’t want to stay here forever_ , he mutters in her hair, and she laughs. _Gods no. I need more than that from life_.

 

***

 

Tyrion never reads Jon’s twelfth letter; a moon’s turn after Jon has it sent, he learns Tyrion has died of old age, and Tormund takes the trip to Winterfell with him to get roaring drunk with Sansa.

“It’s what he’d have wanted us to do,” she says, opening a bottle of Arbor wine.

“Drink until we can’t stand," Jon agrees, and so they do. Arya joins them after they start singing and talks them into playing cyvasse, because wasn’t it Tyrion’s favourite game?

She drinks as much as they do and wins every game she plays, which seems deeply unfair. In the morning -- or the afternoon, Jon’s not quite sure -- Tormund declares it’s his last visit to Winterfell.

“I’m an old man,” he tells Jon’s sister, and niece and nephews, and their own children, “a very old man. Jon ran me ragged for years, and now I want to rest.” Sansa weeps -- she’s the only one who never came further north than Castle Black, and Jon doubts she ever will. For her it’s a final goodbye. Everyone else promises to visit Tormund, at Hardhome or Whitetree or the Fist, and more than half the family escorts him and Jon back to Castle Black for more tearful goodbyes.

On the fourtieth anniversary of the end of the war, Casterly Rock sends a letter -- a surprise, but then Tyrion always liked to have the last word.

_It wasn’t, and yet it had to be done. I'm sorry._

Jon almost burns the scrap of parchment, but in the end he puts it in the same wooden box he keeps the rest of his correspondence with Tyrion.

One year later, Tormund, who might as well be blood, who’s spent more time than anyone at Jon’s side, dies in Whitetree. His daughters are there to see him go, and Val and Jon and Sigorn and a handful more and even Lyanna and her boy. It’s a good death, but once the body is burned and the feast over, Jon steals away for a fortnight and a half with no other company than Ghost, to do his grieving in the wilds.

 

***

 

He still dreams of Dany. Less than he used to, but he doubts it will ever stop, and doesn’t wish for it either; it would feel too much like forgetting. Rarely, there are good dreams of the precious few happy memories he has of his time with her. Those leave him aching with phantom pains for all the things that weren’t. _You’re so young_ , he tells her shade, guilt like bile in his throat. She shakes her head, her tiny fingers tracing the lines time carved in his face. _And whose fault is that?_

 

***

 

He has nothing left of her -- no lock of hair, no letter or ribbon or ring. No grave either, and if she'd had one it would have been South and just as lost to him as everything else. He doubts it would have done any good, having those things, and yet, the thought remains. He has nothing left of her, and with Tyrion gone, no one to mourn her with either.

The Free Folk are better disposed towards her than most of Westeros -- none of them have ever seen King’s Landing or anything on that scale, and no tales can do justice to the destruction she’d wrought there. But they remember where she’d been when the Long Night had come, and they know she’d risen against slavers; in their songs she is a conqueror, a bloody meteor, the Queen-Beyond-the-Sea who could have made the world hers if she hadn’t lost too much saving it.

But none of them had _known_ her -- Tormund had come closest, but he's gone now, and Free Folk are more inclined to celebrate the dead than mourn them anyway. Most of the time, Jon is thankful for that. Sometimes though, sometimes he wishes his sisters at least --

Arya once tells him, late one evening in the Frostfangs, the two of them huddled near their fire, swapping stories, that she understands. “The first time I saw the dragons,” she says, “I felt nothing but wonder, and awe, and hope. I thought they could change _everything_. And then -- and then it all turned to ashes. But I still haven’t forgotten how it felt, that hope, how bright it burned, and I think you feel the same way about her, but more, and I’m _sorry_.”

Jon tells her how it was to touch magic made flesh, to ride a dragon, but he is no poet to give it any justice. “Maybe it was all that power,” he says, looking at the crackling fire. “Rhaegal -- when Rhaegal fell, I was almost glad.” He’s never told that to anyone, but Arya, Arya who can disappear in shadows and hide in plain sight, Arya who set down her list of names so many years ago but never forgot any of them, Arya will understand. Power is power. “Because it meant I’d never ride him again.” Never ride him against the living. “And Dany... Daenerys had her dragons for _years_.”

Arya answers with a look that says _I_ _know_. They never speak of it again.

Sansa never brings her up. Nothing will change either her mind or Jon’s on Daenerys, but neither of them have much interest in revisiting old hurts. She is dead and they are alive.

 

***

 

Most news of the South Jon gets from Sansa, directly or through letters. It’s partly because she has a great number of correspondents as well as spies, and partly because as Queen of a neighbouring kingdom, she is kept informed in ways someone whose only accepted title is Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch isn’t.

He doesn’t quite mind; it means he also gets her thoughts, and she knows how people play the game of thrones in the south. It spares him many a headache and for all that they often disagree, he thinks Sansa appreciates that it’s to her Jon turns. Not that he has many choices nowadays -- there’s Bran, but Bran doesn’t write, because if he wants to know what his siblings are doing he only has to look through the trees.

What Sansa describes over the years is failure. For all that they’ve brought back of prosperity, Bran’s efforts at rebuilding have done little to repair the fault lines between the Six Kingdoms. Some injuries never heal, and there had been many.

“I don’t think the Six Kingdoms will remain long after Bran,” she tells him. And: “Dorne will secede if they don’t get the throne next, and there’d be worse choices, but no one _but_ the Dornish wants Dorne at the head of the kingdoms. The Ironborn -- the Ironborn never got over the way the war ended. Or Essos.”

Arya’s sixth expedition had been the good one and although she’d kept on sailing, her last one westward. But it was the seventh one, led by Sansa’s boy Eddard and one of the Seaworth, that had made it clear the lands of the west were truly the _east_ of Essos.

“They'll never have the throne,” Jon shrugs. "But if Dorne rebels --"

"They'll follow," Sansa finishes, tone glum.

Jon grimaces. His coasts are far from the Iron Islands, but Sansa's aren't.

"Gendry's daughter could keep Dorne in the fold," he offers. Lady Baratheon's dornish ties could make all the difference and from all accounts, Lyanna's half-sister is a formidable woman. But there it was. A woman.

"She's the best option, true," Sansa says. "Dorne will accept her, and Yara too -- if only because she's a not a man. It's everyone else I'm worried about."

"You think they'll go for the Reach?"

"Of course they will," Sansa scoffs. "Who else is there? The Westerlands haven’t yet recovered from bankruptcy, Robyn -- Robyn is not king material. He does right by the Vale, but he cares not for the other kingdoms. And it’s no secret that Edmure’s son can barely keep the Riverlands together. No, it'll be the Reach. The Hightowers have the Faith behind them, they've fed half the kingdoms for years, and they have a _Lord_ , not a Lady." Sansa snorts, unladylike as she rarely allows herself to be and starts again: "It's all that idiot sellsword's fault. He could have lost the Reach to anyone, but no! It had to be a _Hightower_."

It's an open secret that since before the end of the war the Hightowers have sheltered the Faith Militant in Oldtown, then the whole of the Reach. So is the fact that the High Septon once was a Sparrow. For years the man has been a thorn in Bran's side, refusing to reinvest King's Landing or recognize a follower of the Old Gods -- to say nothing of the Three Eyed Raven -- as the rightful ruler of the Six Kingdoms.

Sansa cares little about that. What worries her -- what has long worried her, is the possibility that the Faith's hardening stance will spread to its followers in the North. Over the years Jon's seen enough of her lords join the Free Folk to witness sacrifices to Castle Black's heart tree during spring celebrations to know Sansa's right to be worried; it's one thing to call the Old Gods false in the Reach, but in the North? Nothing good would come of it.

"So it's Lady Baratheon, or it's war," Jon resumes, and can't hide how _tired_ he feels.

Sansa's only answer is a dejected sigh.

 

***

 

Jon’s hairs are gray when Bran comes back to Winterfell. Sansa’s are red still, but Arya says she’s been using die. Her own head is more grey than brown.

Bran tough, Bran’s hair is all white, and he looks older than his years -- too old, and so tired. It’s holding the South together that did it, Jon thinks. He tries not to think Bran deserves it, but doesn’t quite manage. He loves his brother, owes him, but it's hard, seeing him again.

He’s tried not to think about it. What Bran knew, and when. What he let happen. Made happen. It’s harder not to wonder with Bran right there, staring blankly at nothing, so Jon leaves after only a few days. Sansa makes him apologize profusely, but Arya comes with him, pretexting it’s been too long since she’s seen her nieces, as she calls Tormund's daughters.

“You were in Hardhome five moon’s turns ago,” Bran says in his toneless voice. “You gifted them Myrrish lace and blood oranges.”

“That _is_ a long time!” Arya snaps, and she spends the first sennight of the trip grumbling about everything and nothing. Jon isn't in the best of moods either, but a few nights under the stars set him to rights.

Still, he doesn’t go back to Winterfell for more than two years, going as far north as he can and back with Val and Sigorn. Ghost runs in the snow in the Lands of Always Winter, and Jon breathes in the cold air of winter, and out, and thinks of forgiveness.

 

***

 

“I believed my words would be a comfort,” Bran says, much later.

It’s summer, too hot for Jon’s comfort, who’s taken to spending the hottest hours in Winterfell’s godswood for the coolness of the shade. The drawback is Bran, who seems determined to take root there, staring at nothing for hours on end or worse, trying to force awkward hearts-to-hearts on Jon.

“What?” he asks, not just a bit cranky, because Bran’s said nothing at all since first interrupting his nap under the heart tree, a nap he’s been _trying_ to go back to and can now forget.

“In King’s Landing,” says Bran.

Jon sighs. “Bran --”

“I hurt you,” his brother continues, and Jon truly doesn’t want to have this conversation, doesn’t _need_ to. Not that Bran cares, he thinks, the old bitterness all too easy to fall back on still.

Through gritted teeth he waves Bran’s words away. “It’s in the past.”

“Liar,” Bran says, no heat in his toneless voice. “You can’t even stand to look at me.”

"I'm looking at you _right_ _now_ ," Jon snaps. "Don't ask for more, Bran. I'm not -- I don't live in the past. I can't. Whatever it is you want to get off your chest, I don't want it."

It takes a long time for Bran to answer. "Alright then. I hadn't realized you'd forgiven me already."

"Seven fucking hells," Jon curses. "And you call yourself all-seeing?"

 

***

 

Jon is an old man when he dies in Whitetree, surrounded by his people and his family -- Sansa and Val, who could be sisters now that they both have the same stark white hairs, and Arya who urges Jon to get on with it, jaw stubbornly set even as her eyes shine with unshed tears. Bran offers awkward, stilted words of comfort about a life well lived, and Sam babbles about the new tome he’s working on. Sigorn is there, and Tormund’s daughters who call Jon their uncle, and it feels like half the Two Norths has either visited him on his deathbed or sent messages.

It’s a good death, and Ghost sees him to the end -- the direwolf is old now, unnaturally so. Wargs call it a favour from the Old Gods, and it surprises no one when he dies within a minute of Jon’s passing.

Two fortnight later at Castle Black, the two bodies are burned as the Free Folk still do, during a feast that stretches near on a sennight and sees Arya’s blue-eyed grandson steal himself one of Tormund’s granddaughters, which everyone declares fitting, and a pretext for many a toast. Mammoths are slaughtered to feed the crowds and Castle Black’s cellars near-emptied, many a song are sung, Tormund’s old favourite _The Stolen Heir_ more than any other, and every day the festivities continue long into the night.

In the Shield Hall where old friends can gather in relative quiet, Sansa declares the whole affair as grandiose as anything the South can throw, prompting toasts and approving nods.

“It’s not every day a king dies,” Val says, not quite smiling.

“The last one we’ll ever have, might be,” Sigorn adds, eyes bright. “It’s well worth a feast to remember for ages to come.”

“You best hope no one will remember you falling into that cooking fire,” Arya mocks, and there is laughter once more.

 

 

***

 

Jon’s ashes go to Winterfell’s crypt at his siblings’ request.

Sansa asks the sculptor tasked with the statue not to forget her brother’s crown, and when the man says he’s never seen it, she tells him to make it look as those of the olden Kings of Winter. It’s a small victory, to have him crowned at last, and although Arya calls it petty she says so with a wolfish smile. Bran cries at the sight, and mumbles something about fate.

There’s a plaque too. Under the titles the only name is Jon Snow -- Val’s one demand.

 

 

(Two days after it’s set Sansa finds someone crudely carved the word _Stark_ just beside _Snow_. _It’s probably Arya_ , she tells Bran, and doesn’t have the plaque changed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> idk i just have a lot of feelings for the whole trainwreck.  
> i tried to keep to show canon at first but then i remembered mid-draft that show thenn are the ones who eat people, and i was too lazy to change it and from there onwards i shoved in whatever i wanted.  
> probably could have done with actual betaing but also this was just supposed to be 2k of semi-warm and semi-fuzzies and i’ve already spent way too much time on it. it could do with expanding and more revisions but *shrugs* i need to get over perfectionism. 
> 
> some temporary titles you were spared, a non-exhaustive list: fuck you fic / where do we draw the line? cannibal thenn that’s where / i taketh and i giveth
> 
> some notes:  
> \- i wanted the title to be a nod to a Free Folk song, but there’s only one and it’s sad af, so i fixed it  
> \- i had a long back-and-forth with myself about whether i should put in hints that a resurrected Daenerys is chilling in Essos, but it would have been a whole other story if i had, and not the one i wanted. feel free to imagine though. i sure do  
> \- feat. my headcanon that the Sparrows/the Faith are just licking their wounds in Oldtown, and not exactly sold on this whole Three Eyed Raven thing, my sincere belief that there's no way in the seven hells giving the Reach to Bronn is a good idea, and my just as sincere belief that the Dornish are gonna go all uprising. they’re just taking their time licking their wounds because i’d rather the current generation get some dang long years of peace, i’m sentimental like that  
> \- hardcore religious revival everywhere. i have needs damnit  
> \- oh and feat. my headcanon that Arya’s gonna come back North sooner than later, because honestly, if no one found whatever’s left of Westeros in however many thousand years, one tiny ship ain’t gonna cut it, sorry babe if you wanna find the Indies you gonna need a dang fleet. + my corollary headcanon that it becomes a race with the Iron Islands, but not in like Olympics spirit, more like vicious proxy war  
> \- yeah so i’m down for northern independence and all, i’m norm mcnormie and i love the North like stupid, i just don’t see how like half of the Six Kingdoms (and the Faith) wouldn’t resent the fuck out of them after all that, and with good fucking reason.  
> \- Torrhen Snow exists because Sansa deserves someone nice but the pickings were slim and i was too lazy to think hard about which northern lords and lordlings of acceptable age and temperament from the books might be alive by the end of the show  
> \- no one ever said Jeyne was dead in the show. i think?  
> \- Alys and Sigorn's marriage is one of my favorite scenes so here they be  
> \- the Free Folk get the happiest ending i could give them. they're the real winners in all this  
> \- if i had even an ounce of songwriting in me i'd write _The Stolen Heir_ but i don't. in my head it's very long, all kinds of ridiculous, extremely historically inaccurate, and just really, _really_ petty


End file.
